After the success of my vegan royal icing, I decided to try to give vegan sugar cookies a try. When I made the vegan royal icing, I did it only because I was fascinated with the idea of making something delicious out of the liquid in a can of chickpeas. I didn’t have anyone who follows a vegan lifestyle to make it for, it was pure curiosity.

After consulting Google, I found a recipe that looked interesting on Gretchen’s Bakery’s website. It was a bonus that it too called for aquafaba. I made minimal changes. We love roasted chickpeas so it was no hardship to open another can of them. Directions on how to make roasted chickpeas can be found here

This cookie dough is a little different to work with than my normal sugar cookie recipe. You must work additional flour into the dough after chilling it to be able to successfully roll it out, as is stated in the recipe. I found that we liked the cookies better when they were allowed to brown slightly. Link to Vegan Royal Icing

Drain can of chickpeas. Set aside chickpeas. The juice is aquafaba and is used in this recipe as well as Vegan Royal Icing.

Cream the Earth Balance with the sugar until light and fluffy, about 3- 5 minutes. There is no need to soften it.

Add , the aquafaba and the extracts to the creaming butter/sugar mixture and scrape the sides of the bowl

Next mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add it all at once to the creamed mixture. Mix just until it is all combined.

Wrap this dough disc in plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight before using or you can store it for up to 1 week wrapped in plastic wrap in the refrigerator, or in the freezer for 2 months.

You must re work this dough with some additional flour to a pliable consistency after it has been chilled. Do not skip this step.

Knead it with some flour until it is no longer a crumbly mass, but a soft pliable dough

Roll out the dough to ¼" thick and cut shapes as desired

Transfer cookie cutouts to a parchment lined sheet pan and bake in preheated to 350° F oven for approximately 15-22 minutes or until light golden brown.

I found that these cookies taste better if they are baked until they are a light golden brown.

I have been trying to find a chocolate cookie recipe that tastes great while still standing up to royal icing. This proved to be more of a challenge than I expected. Finding a recipe that tasted good was no problem, but many of the recipes I tried were not as sturdy as what I was looking for.

As a last resort I decided to try to make my tried and true sugar cookie recipe into a chocolate cookie. Surprisingly, it worked really well! It has a very good chocolate flavor and it is easy to decorate. Keep in mind that the quality of your cocoa powder is going to dictate the flavor of this cookie. Try different brands to see which one you like best. My favorite is Hershey’s Dark Cocoa, but Hershey’s classic cocoa is also a great alternative. Make sure your cocoa powder is fresh, this will also influence the quality of your finished product. If you would like to try my royal icing recipe here is the link.

I hope you will give this recipe a try and let me know what you think.

Mix butter and granulated sugar until thoroughly blended. You don't need to "cream" your butter and sugar. The more you mix your dough at each stage the more your cookies will spread while being baked. Add eggs and extracts. Mix well. Add flour and cocoa, mix until just combined. Do not over mix your dough. Separate the dough into 2 or 3 balls, flatten and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight. The dough can also be frozen at this point. Defrost it in the refrigerator. The dough will keep for a few days, in the refrigerator.

Take one piece of dough out and let it sit on the counter for a few minutes. The dough will be very hard, but it softens quickly. Working with one section of dough at a time, roll the dough on a floured surface, to about 1/4″ thickness, and cut into desired shapes. Less is more when it comes to flouring your pastry cloth. The more flour you incorporate into the rolled dough, the tougher your cookies will be.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. All ovens are different so keep an eye on your cookies the first time you make them to determine the best time for your oven.

**You may add any other flavoring you may like but don’t eliminate the vanilla. Some great additions would be 2 tsp. espresso coffee powder, 1 tsp. peppermint extract, 1 tsp. orange extract or 1 tsp. almond extract. Be aware of nut allergies if you choose to use pure almond extract.

*** In dry, winter months start with less flour. If the dough is too soft add the remaining flour.

I love turkeys! All kinds of turkeys. I should clarify that statement. We used to live near a turkey farm and the live ones aren’t my favorites. They are smelly, noisy and dumb as a stump. But, I love silly turkey cookies. Every year I make a different turkey cookie. If I had more people to bake for I would make a bunch of different turkey designs each year, but at some point sanity must prevail, and I have to make a choice.

These little guys were made with a sailboat cookie cutter. I wish I could tell you that I was clever enough to figure that out for myself but I can’t lie. I found this idea on the fabulous Bearfootbaker’s blog. They are really simple to do. I think the thing I like best is that you can give them many different expressions. Pupil placement and eyebrow slant will determine whether your turkey is afraid, happy, or angry.

Once your cookies are baked and cooled you can start working on the faces.

Do a simple sketch of where you want to put the eyes. I also made marks to remind myself that I wanted make their hair a little wacky. I used a pencil to sketch on the cookies. Sometimes I use edible pen markers and sometimes I use a pencil. It depends on what design I’m working on.

Pipe one eye and pupil. I use a small table fan to help my frosting crust quicker and prevent craters. Using a fan has cut my decorating time substantially. I no longer have to wait so long between steps. The other advantage of using a fan is that it seems to help with color bleed. I had almost no color bleed from the wet on wet application of the pupils on the white eye. By the time you have the first eye done on 5 or 6 cookies they should be crusted enough to do the second eye.

When you have both eyes done and they have crusted, it’s time to flood the beak.

I forgot to take pictures of the next two steps but they are pretty self explanatory. After the beak has crusted, flood the head with brown icing, add the nostrils on the beak, and then the red wattle. Set in front of the fan for an hour or so. I always let my cookies completely dry overnight before I put them in bags or containers.

This summer, our two youngest grandchildren went to sleep away camp for the first time. That was all the inspiration I needed to make this set of cookies! I searched online for examples of camp-themed cookies that others had made, and was lucky enough to find several photos to inspire my project. I couldn’t find any instructions, so I decided to create a simple tutorial so that you can make them too.

Before beginning any new “cookie project,” I assemble the cutters I want to use. As you can see, the shapes are very simple, but I didn’t have anything that I could use for a tent. My husband took a cookie cutter that I never use, and reshaped it to look like a tent. Even though it looks wrinkled, the cookie edges were straight and it worked fine.

I started with a batch of my sugar cookies, cutting them into the shapes I had chosen. After mixing up a batch of royal icing, I decided which colors I wanted for the cookies, and figured out the consistencies that I needed for each step in the frosting process. The consistency times for each part of the cookie are listed below:

Royal icing consistency is the one thing that everyone seems to have a hard time with (myself included). Getting it to the proper consistency is not an exact science. Life would be so much easier if an exact amount of water and sugar produced a given consistency every time. Unfortunately, it really is trial and error. If it’s too thick, you will need to add more water. If it’s too thin, you will need to add more confectioner’s sugar. There are quite a few YouTube videos that deal with royal icing consistency. Watching this video made getting the proper piping consistency a breeze. It finally “clicked.”

I decided to make transfers for the campfire and the sign to help minimize the bleeding that sometimes occurs when layering designs on a cookie. This is especially helpful when the weather is hot and humid. I started with the campfires. I traced the cookie cutter that I wanted to use on a piece of paper and drew a rough sketch of a campfire onto the shape to insure that it would fit the cookie the way I wanted it to.

I started with the logs for the campfires. I used small magnets to hold the waxed paper in place while I piped the first log. I let the first log crust for about 15 minutes before adding the second log.

Once both logs crusted, I went in and started to add the flames. I placed a small amount of yellow where the logs crossed.

Next, I added the red/orange icing roughly following the design. There is no need to be too precise.

Smooth the frosting with a needle tool or a toothpick, and then add some yellow. You may need to experiment a little to make it look like flames. This is how I did it.

Drag a toothpick or needle tool to create the flames.

Once all of the transfers have dried for 24 hours, you can add them to your frosted cookies. You may either add them to freshly frosted cookies before the frosting has dried, or you can add them to dried cookies by using a few dabs of royal icing to “glue” the transfers in place.

Next I made the signs. I made a rough sketch of a sign post, placed it under my waxed paper and piped the shape of the sign.

I then used a toothpick to pull the edges into a shape that would resemble the ends of an arrow.

Once they were dry, I piped the words onto the sign. My handwriting is horrible under optimum conditions, but these are supposed to look rustic, so I wasn’t too worried.

Do you see how white the letters are? If you look at the finished cookie you will see that the brown bled into the letters making them beige. For this project, it was no big deal. I think the problem was that I forgot to color the frosting I used for the letters. I always add white food coloring to my white frosting, but forgot this time. I think adding the white food coloring makes the icing more opaque.

Once all of the transfers have dried for 24 hours, you can add them to your frosted cookies. You may either add them to freshly frosted cookies before the frosting has dried, or you can add them to dried cookies by using a few dabs of royal icing to “glue” the transfers in place. Here you can see how the brown bled into the letters. If you add the transfers to wet cookies you will have to let them dry before you add the green grass.

I have found that the easiest way to separate the transfers from the waxed paper is to use dental floss. First you move your waxed paper to the edge of a table or counter so you can release the waxed paper from an edge of the transfer. Slip your dental floss under and edge, and while holding close to the table start moving the floss under your transfer.

For the little feet, I drew a foot on a piece of paper, slipped it under my waxed paper and piped some frosting onto the shape. I then used my needle tool (or toothpick) to make the shape look something like a foot. Next, pipe small dots of frosting to represent the toes. Drag a tiny bit of the toe to meet the foot. I only had room for 4 toes, but because it’s a silly cookie, I think it’s okay. I forgot to take pictures of the foot making process (except for this one), but here you can see some of the pitfalls. If the dots are too close they become almost web like. I made quite a few feet before I got the spacing right (like the bottom right foot). It depends on the consistency of your royal icing, and how much it flows once piped.

I didn’t take any photos of the tent cookies during the process. My workflow went as follows:

1. Draw the opening of the tent.

2. Pipe black royal icing onto cookie and put feet in place.

3. Let dry overnight.

4. Pipe tent onto cookie.

5. When dry or crusted for about an hour, pipe the outline and rolled edge at the opening of the tent. (I had used all of my brown icing on the tents so when I made more for the trim, I made it a slightly lighter brown because I knew I would never be able to match the color.

6. When completely dry pipe Z’s onto tent.

The “marshmallows-on-a-stick” cookies were the simplest. I frosted some cookies with the leftover icing from the feet transfers. Once they were completely dry, I took some brown royal icing and added the sticks. The next day, I added a drop of white royal icing on each twig and used my needle tool to coax them into something that looked like a marshmallow.

Please post pictures of your cookies, and don’t forget to tag Sugar Coated Nanagrams on Instagram (@sugar_coated_nanagrams) and Facebook! I’d love see what you create!

The first time I saw these beach cookies with flip flops on the “sand,” I fell in love with them.

Mine aren’t even close to the ones that Michelle of Make Me Cake Me made, but hers were my inspiration. If you read the About section of this blog, you will see that my main goal isn’t to produce perfect cookies, but to reach anyone, especially senior citizens, who are afraid to tackle cookie decorating and encourage them to give it a try. It’s a lot of fun and learning something new is good for the brain!!

I started this journey very late in life (66) and my focus all along was to make fun things to send to my kids and grand-kids, and anyone else that I wanted to surprise with a goody box. Everything you will see here are things that I have made and sent to friends and family.

My beach themed cookies!

Start with a baked cookie in whatever shape you like. My favorite recipe is here. You will need Royal Icing in white, blue and tan. You will also need sanding sugar for the “sand.” I didn’t have any tan sanding sugar, so I improvised and colored my own. Did you know that you can color your own sanding sugar? Neither did I until I read the fabulous Sugarbelle’s blog post.

Start by gathering your supplies. I decorate my cookies on a folded paper towel because I make a mess of the frosting every time I try to rotate a cookie. By putting it on the paper towel, I can rotate the cookie easily. In addition to the paper towel you will need:

a stylus or toothpicks

a damp paper towel to wipe your decorating tip

an edible marker to draw your design on the cookie

a flat edged paint brush to make the waves

Draw the shape of the water with an edible marker, and then outline and fill with the blue/green icing.

Once the “water” has completely dried, you can outline and fill the sand part of the cookie. While it is still wet, hold your cookie over a coffee filter and cover with the sanding sugar. Using a coffee filter to catch your extra sanding sugar works great. When you are done it is very easy to pour all of the extra sanding sugar back into the jar.

Next, pipe two dots of colored frosting onto the sand. Using a stylus or toothpick, coax the two dots together to resemble a flip flop. After that is dry, pipe small white lines to look like the top of flip flops. I forgot to take a picture of this step!

When the sand part of the cookie has dried (over night is best), brush the excess sanding sugar dust from the water part of the cookie, and pipe a line of stiff white Royal Icing along the edge of the water.

Dampen a paint brush and then dry it on a paper towel. Use just the edge of the paintbrush to pull the frosting onto the water to make it look like foam.

As a afterthought, I thought I would try to make a whale’s tail. I piped a small blob of frosting and then used my stylus to make the tail shape. Clearly I didn’t remember what a whale’s tale looks like, because mine are a little strange looking. Have I mentioned that perfection is over-rated?

Starfish Cookie

I used a star cookie cutter to make the Starfish Cookies. Once they were cut out, I bent the points a little to resemble a starfish.

After the cookies are cool, outline and fill them with the color of your choice. I used tan, but it might be fun to make them in a variety of colors. You don’t need to wait until the cookies are totally dry before adding the dots and the eyes. Once the frosting has crusted over, after about 30-45 minutes, you can (carefully) add the dots. The eyes that I used are transfers that I made a long time ago. Sometimes, when I have left over frosting, I make transfers to keep on hand. I used to make the eyes complete with black centers, but I don’t anymore. I found that the black rubs off onto the white parts when they are stored in a small container. You can use a small dot of black icing or a dot of black edible marker to finish the eyes and to make the mouth. The tweezers that I use are made to be used for threading serger sewing machines, but they work better than anything else I have tried for placing transfers onto frosting. I will create a post about transfers soon. They are so much fun to make!!

I hope you have as much fun as I did, making these cookies. Please share photos of your fun, summery cookies!

This is another recipe that my fabulous mother-in-law gave me. This is the recipe she used for the Santa Claus cookies that were a part of every Christmas cookie plate that she made. They continue to be part of her children and grandchildren’s Christmas tradition to this day.

Our family still makes them the same way every year. They are really silly looking, but we all love them and it wouldn’t be Christmas without these cookies.

The reason that I love this recipe, in addition to its wonderful flavor, is they don’t spread at all, and they keep their cut out shape very well. I re-roll my scraps at the very end, because the more you roll the dough, the less stable it becomes and it may bubble or lose shape. I notice it most often on circles and squares. The first ones I cut out are the ones that I need for a specific purpose. The last ones I cut are for my home cookie jar because my husband doesn’t care if they are misshapen. He loves them all!

One important thing I have learned is to not soften my butter too much. You want to be able to press on it and leave your finger mark but not soft enough to spread on bread easily. Another tip is to not mix the dough too long for the most tender cookie. Mix it only until it all comes together.

Sugar Cookies

Approx. 3+ dozen 3″ cookies

1 Cup (8 ounces) butter, slightly softened*

1 1/2 Cups (315 grams) granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1 tsp lemon extract**

2 tsp vanilla

4 1/4 – 4 1/2 Cups (522 – 568 grams) flour ***

Mix butter and granulated sugar until thoroughly blended. You don’t need to “cream” your butter and sugar. The more you mix your dough at each stage the more your cookies will spread while being baked. Add eggs and extracts. Mix well. Add flour, mix until just combined. Do not over mix your dough. Separate the dough into 2 or 3 balls, flatten and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight. The dough can also be frozen at this point. Defrost it in the refrigerator. The dough will keep for a few days, in the refrigerator.

Take one piece of dough out and let it sit on the counter for a few minutes. The dough will be very hard, but it softens quickly. Working with one section of dough at a time, roll the dough on a floured surface, to about 1/4″ thickness, and cut into desired shapes. Less is more when it comes to flouring your pastry cloth. The more flour you incorporate into the rolled dough, the tougher your cookies will be.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are slightly brown on the bottom. All ovens are different so keep an eye on your cookies the first time you make them to determine the best time for your oven.

*Make sure you don’t over soften your butter. You should be able to make an dent with your finger when pressed but not so soft that your finger will go right into the butter.

**You may substitute any other flavoring you may prefer for the lemon but don’t eliminate the vanilla. Be aware of nut allergies if you choose to use almond extract.

***This dough is stickier than some recipes. I roll my cookies out on a pastry cloth with flour so this recipe allows for some added flour from the rolling process. If you do not use flour to roll your cookies you may add an additional 1/4 cup of flour to the recipe.

Beat all ingredients. You may add more milk if you want the icing softer but start with 1 Tablespoon. Store leftover frosting in the refrigerator or freezer. Will keep for about a week in the refrigerator and indefinitely in the freezer.

If you want to learn the easiest, most incredible way to fill your icing bag, check out Karen’s video. Just so you know, I’m not compensated in any way to link Karen’s shop, but she is really terrific to deal with and very responsive to any questions you might have.